By Julian Sheriff, Head of Operations, GibFibre

Data is the engine that drives businesses forward, but to get the most out of the data they generate and hold, organisations need to ensure they are on top of data management.

This covers everything from data gathering, cleansing and analysis to more complicated aspects such as data sovereignty and data residency.

What is data residency?

Simply put, data residency is where data is stored. This could be a physical location, such as hard drives in an office, or it could be a virtual solution such as the cloud.

It is a key consideration for businesses that need to adhere to strict data privacy rules and regulations, especially those with a footprint in several jurisdictions across the world.

Data residency also covers data mapping, which helps organisations understand what data they hold, where it is located and the rules and laws in place in each location.

A quick word on data sovereignty

Data residency and data sovereignty are often used interchangeably but there are subtle yet important differences between them.

With data sovereignty, it’s all about the specific legal frameworks governing data while residency is mostly about the geographical location of the data.

Why businesses need to think carefully about data residency

The primary focus of data residency is to be compliant with data protection laws and regulations in the jurisdictions where the business operates and the data is held.

Other considerations include security and ensuring data is protected, and that the right levels of access are in place.

Ultimately, it comes down to ensuring that data is stored in the right geographic areas and is compliant with the laws, customs and general expectations of those jurisdictions.

The risks of getting it wrong

Get data residency wrong and you can find that you have unintentionally broken data laws, which can lead to some pretty heavy penalties.

It can also leave an organisation and its data vulnerable to a cyberattack, the impact of which can be severe and go beyond financial damage to reputational harm and, again, legal repercussions.

What are the upsides to getting it right?

Get data residency right and there are plenty of upsides to take advantage of.

This includes having more control over where data is stored and accessed, resulting in better data management practices.

Consumers and clients feel more confident knowing that data is being stored in line with requirements, and that the necessary security protections are in place.

Most importantly, it means data is being stored compliantly and in line with the rules and regulations of the specific countries it is being stored within, mitigating the risk of breaking the law.

The post What is data residency, and why do you need to care about it? appeared first on Gibraltar International Magazine.

By Karissa Pizzarello, GibFibre

In the modern business world, particularly for medium-sized enterprises in sectors such as insurance, finance, banking, crypto/ blockchain, and eGaming, data security and management are paramount. As data volumes grow and cyber threats evolve, relying on a robust and secure data centre has become essential.

Ensuring robust security measures

Data breaches can have devastating financial and reputational consequences, but data centres offer a comprehensive suite of security measures often beyond the scope of in-house IT departments. For instance, Gibfibre’s data centre employs advanced security protocols such as biometric access controls, 24/7 CCTV surveillance, and ISO27001 certification, ensuring that sensitive business data remains secure against unauthorised access and potential breaches.

Enhanced reliability and redundancy

Downtime can cripple a business, leading to lost revenue and diminished customer trust. Data centres are built with redundancy in mind, offering multiple layers of fail-safes to ensure continuous operation.

Connectivity and global reach

n today’s interconnected world, the ability to access and transfer data globally is crucial. Data centres provide enhanced connectivity options, ensuring a smooth operation across different regions, with links to major hubs in cities like Madrid, London, Amsterdam, Marseille, and Frankfurt. This extensive network ensures that businesses can leverage global opportunities without compromising speed or reliability.

Scalability to meet business growth

As businesses grow, their data storage and processing needs increase. Inhouse solutions can quickly become inadequate, leading to inefficiencies and increased costs. Data centres provide scalable solutions that adapt to evolving requirements without significant upfront investments.

Compliance and data residency

Regulatory compliance is a critical concern for industries like banking and insurance. Ensuring that data storage solutions meet necessary legal and industry standards can be challenging. Gibfibre’s data centre adheres to stringent compliance requirements, including ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO 14644-1, providing peace of mind that data management practices are up to standard. Additionally, for businesses operating within specific jurisdictions, Gibfibre’s location in Gibraltar offers the advantage of local data residency, helping navigate complex regulatory landscapes.

The impact of DORA

The recently introduced Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) is set to revolutionise how businesses approach digital risk and operational resilience. DORA aims to ensure that all firms in the financial sector can withstand, respond to, and recover from all types of ICTrelated disruptions and threats. This legislation imposes stringent requirements on operational resilience, including the need for advanced risk management frameworks, incident reporting, and thirdparty risk monitoring. For businesses, adapting to DORA means implementing more robust digital infrastructure and stringent compliance measures. Failure to comply can result in significant penalties and increased scrutiny from regulatory bodies. Data centres are perfectly positioned to help businesses meet these new regulations.

Environmentally efficient operations

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor for businesses. Data centres are designed to optimise energy use and minimise environmental impact, and incorporate environmentally friendly designs with energy-efficient features, ensuring that data management practices contribute to broader sustainability goals. This commitment benefits the environment and enhances a company’s corporate social responsibility profile.

Support and expertise

Managing a complex IT infrastructure requires specialised knowledge and expertise. Data centres offer access to skilled professionals who provide support and maintenance, allowing internal teams to focus on core business activities.

Conclusion

In conclusion, leveraging a state-of-the-art data centre is essential for medium-sized businesses aiming to safeguard their data, ensure operational continuity, and stay ahead in a competitive market. Gibfibre’s new data centre offers a compelling option that combines security, reliability, and scalability, providing businesses with the peace of mind they need to thrive in the digital age.

The post Unlocking the power of Data Centres and why businesses need to know about them appeared first on Gibraltar International Magazine.

Broadband competition – phenomenally good for business

Gibraltar’s three broadband suppliers, each with a separate infrastructure, is “phenomenally good” for business and consumers with lower prices, faster speeds and wider services

The dominant supplier, State-owned Gibtelecom (Gibtel), saw its market share of broadband slip to 70% in 2016 from 90% previously, largely as Sapphire Networks, the second largest supplier, diversified from corporate and enterprise business into residential connections through its u-mee subsidiary.

Relative newcomer, GibFibreSpeed has been strongly marketing broadband services, while investing £10m in fibre cabling to service Gibraltar homes and businesses. “I believe it is because of our intervention in the market that prices generally have come down in Gibraltar – we have had a major impact on reducing the cost and raising the speed offering for internet,” Julian Sheriff, GibFibreSpeed’s development manager, said.

The Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA) reported the number of broadband residential and business subscribers in Gibraltar at the end of 2016 increased by 1,641 to 16,357 and was “due, in part, to the new residential housing estates being constructed around Gibraltar”.

The GRA’s annual report published in September declared “new broadband packages from u-mee and GibFibreSpeed have attracted substantial [residential] subscriber numbers and now have market shares respectively of 17% and 11%” at end-March 2017.

“With Gibtelecom upgrading customers to higher broadband speeds at lower prices as well as the wider availability of products from broadband providers … subscribers are now enjoying fibre to the home (FTTH) broadband with speeds of up to 300Mbps, as well as customisable packages in excess of 300Mbps,” the GRA said.

Despite high-speed offerings, 25Mbps was the median purchased in 2016-17, compared with around 7Mbps a year earlier. “It is widely accepted that consumers generally want faster broadband,” declared the GRA, which expected the shift to higher bandwidth products to grow.

TV fuels competition

Much of the demand has been fuelled by the two smaller companies packaging broadband and ‘phone provision with live TV, something that Gibtel has resolutely refused to provide without the latter being licensed. Now, by end-March, Gibtel expects to launch its IPTV service, which chief executive, Tim Bristow says will be “different to the others, a technically superior product with a range of media services that aren’t currently available from our competitors and, crucially, licensed content, for which we are going to pay.”

“The dynamics have changed in the last two years; [our competitors] are being particularly aggressive in the market and therefore we had little choice but to move into that space,” Bristow said, adding: “With this development, we are going to win more of this market back”.

He noted: “It’s very expensive to do it properly and legally. We are investing several million pounds over 3-5 years – a large proportion of that is to legally buy the content, which we have to do every year.”

Bristow admitted: “With many of the new homes, we haven’t done as well and we have started to lose some accounts in other places, but that is to be expected in a competitive market.” Loss of broadband subscribers – “not as much as people might think” – had contributed to Gibtel’s turnover flat lining year-on-year at around £42m, with 30% coming from fixed line – both broadband and telephone – and a similar proportion each from mobile and from international business outside of Gibraltar.

u-mee packages combine high definition TV, a proper landline with a local ‘phone number and FTTH broadband; they also offer a ‘Talk-app’ that allows local calls to be received on a mobile phone on any network wherever in the world customers receive 3G, 4G or WiFi connection – a popular added feature included with the higher ‘u-mee Plus’ bundle.

‘TV & Go’ (that allows live TV programmes on a smartphone or tablet, or use with a set top box connected to the internet, with 7-day catch-up and programme recording), is available for u-mee and non-customers.

For more than 15 years, Gibsat Ltd has been The Rock’s main TV provider using analogue cabling. Sheriff maintained: “Although residential customers have been the foundation of our business, it is the corporate side, where prices remain high compared with the UK and Europe, that represents our biggest opportunity.”

Receptive market

Convincing large eGaming businesses and others in the corporate sector that GibFibre’s product is a viable alternative is a major challenge. “We are a lower cost alternative with a similar offering to that of the two bigger players, so it will be down to how well we perform”, admitted Sean O’Reilly, who joined last year from Dublin where he was country manager for Huawai, the Chinese telecoms and IT giant that he helped establish there 15 years ago.

O’Reilly added: “There is always going to be a degree of drag – traction time – that requires a leap of faith for any new business customers that depend on the internet for their survival, but the market has been very receptive to our arrival and we feel that will be converted into customers.” GibFibre says it already has some – undisclosed – large customers, including at least three gaming firms, and others in financial services; “there are also a significant number of smaller businesses moving to us.”

u-mee Business was launched in 2017 aimed at the small office and home office (SoHo) sector – shops, lawyers and accountants – providing 100Mbps fibre internet (utilizing GPON technology, like u-mee residential fibre products) with 20Mbps upload speeds and four telephone lines with extension features, for £75pm. “We see a gap in the market here and an opportunity for us”, declared Sapphire Group chief executive, Lawrence Isola.

This differs from Sapphire’s Business Fibre product, which offers up to 300Mbps download speed with 30Mbps upload, but using direct fibre links similar to those provided to large customers in the eGaming sector, but for £250-350pm. “There has not been more than a single 3 second drop-out of service in ten years”, Isola declared proudly.

The gaming companies, on which much of Sapphire business is based, “are not growing at the same pace as previously, there are fewer of them given mergers; they generally do not want more capacity – sometimes they want less – but they certainly now do want to spend less for a strong internet service when contract renewals occur”, Isola observed.

Gibtel claims two-thirds of the eGaming market. On gaming sector concerns regarding higher than UK internet costs, Isola is pragmatic. “Prices gaming companies pay are higher when compared with elsewhere in Europe, because here we don’t have a 5m population or a cluster of 500 gaming companies to bring economies of scale… yet service expectations are the highest imaginable, and require significant continuous investment.”

Isola added: “We established u-mee two years ago as diversification to ensure we have market share and to protect profitability. Our prices have not changed despite greater competition and the significant weakening of Sterling, but we have invested £8-9m in developing the fibre network to support that side of the business. u-mee is accounting for a greater share of the Sapphire group business, while gaming is leveling off.”

Facing realities

However, on increasing competition, Isola rounded: “It is crazy that the substantial cost cutting that is taking place for internet services, involving all three providers, is not good for Gibraltar given its impact on profitability for each of us, and this could well affect future investment and the returns that can be expected”, Isola maintained.

He held: “Gibraltar is too small a place for three telecoms companies” and questioned “the long-term stability, reliability and resilience of service in industries that are key to our economy – realities have to be faced”.

Sapphire has one 48-rack data centre at Europort that is almost full. Gibtel launched its Rockolo subsidiary in March to handle its 400 racks at Mount Pleasant and from Spring 2017 at the Gibraltar World Trade Center.

By mid-June, Rockolo had added Gibraltar’s first locally-hosted cloud computing solution in partnership with GiBVault, a specialist provider, bringing customers “reduced hardware, software and running costs, speed of deployment, greater flexibility and enhanced productivity”, Bristow pointed out.

However, in February this year, the GRA ended a year-long investigation into whether Gibtel had breached its (Significant Market Power) SMP operator obligation
having blocked access to the Mount Pleasant data centre and “access to all ducts, manholes and other infrastructure” for GibFibreSpeed to provide potential customers with IP transit and leased lines services.

The GRA concluded its powers “did not extend to mandating operators to cooperate on a commercial level with other operators, even if this is deemed to be positive in the
electronic communications market”. Legal advice said Gibtel did not have to offer commercial hosting agreements, or give access to its data centres, to other operators; Gibtel’s SMP obligation did not extend to its customer’s equipment in the data centre.

GibFibreSpeed disagreed and is appealing the GRA decision in Gibraltar’s Supreme Court. It’s the first case of its type and the outcome of a hearing scheduled to begin on 5th March could have far-reaching impact, having also exposed Gibraltar‘s lack of a competition authority covering all aspects of business.

The Gibraltar Communications Act requires the GRA to “promote competition”, but as GRA legal advisor, Maurice Hook noted: “If any operator did something that we considered anti-competitive, there is in reality very little we can do about it.” That has prompted consideration of making GRA competition enforcement possible, or introducing wider-based competition law – something Gibtel’s Bristow said: “We would “welcome a competitions authority.”

The up-coming court case has delayed a GRA public consultation on wholesale broadband access markets; it has twice before proposed reviewing whether Gibtel is sufficiently competitive. “I suspect [the GRA] was out of sync with the EU requirement”, Bristow observed, “where no-one is policing the broadband retail market as proposed.”

Gibtel is mainly regulated on voice fixed lines. It’s mobile business, with download speeds of up to 400mps through 4G+ (faster than broadband at present), accounts roundly for 30% of turnover having only little competition from 2017 newcomer, Limba Telecoms.

Extending reach

When Telekom Slovenije sold in 2014 its seven years 50% Gibtel holding, the government paid £47.7m, ending 26 years of private sector involvement. Chief Minister Fabian Picardo described it as “a temporary move”, stressing the importance of finding “the right partner and not the quickest partner” in Gibtel. After three years, nothing has changed, and observers believe the State will need to reduce its stake to 49% at most.

Prospective buyers may be interested in the 30% share of revenue Gibtel gains from its international business, some through sales of capacity on its share of the upgraded Europe-India Gateway 15,000 kms-long submarine cable. Gibtel has extended the reach by a third to Singapore after securing a deal with an Asian telco and also now has customers in South Africa and Australia.

“We’ve built a European network with Points of Presence in London, Marseilles and Madrid and can reach there by going north overland or by sea through various points, or through France – it means we have so much route diversity and resilience that Gibraltar can be assured its telecommunications are safe – I don’t think our competitors are even in the same game”, Bristow observed.

The post Broadband competition – phenomenally good for business appeared first on Gibraltar International Magazine.

Tuning into TV leads to broadband wars

Telecommunication company profits are under pressure as competition intensifies, prices fall across the board and demand for service content grows. Ray Spencer looks at how, in a small market, the suppliers of broadband Internet services are counting on diversification to maintain business growth

High bandwidth, superfast broadband services have been available for well over a decade to Gibraltar’s eGaming and financial services sector businesses fuelling the growth of State-owned Gibtelecom (Gibtel) and private concern, Sapphire Networks.

But with uncertainty over expansion of the jurisdiction’s all-important Internet gambling sector (as a result of a spate or industry mergers and acquisitions), the two largest telecoms suppliers are being joined by two smaller firms in a bid to attract residential custom.

More than £25m has been invested by three firms on installation of fast broadband through new fibre optic cables offering download speeds of 100mps or more – GibFibreSpeed, an offshoot of old-established local firm, A J Sheriff Electrical, even boasts 200mps, way more than most computers can handle!

A readily available superfast bandwidth of 100mbs puts Gibraltar “well ahead of the EU digital agenda on delivery of broadband speeds”, points out Gibtel chief executive Tim Bristow, who with a claimed 90% broadband market share says his fibre cabling reaches directly to homes and offices throughout The Rock, or within 500m of their premises.

Sapphire Networks is spending some £5m over three years on top of the £10m already invested in fibre optic cabling to extend its network beyond the estimated 70% of eGaming companies it presently supplies, to reach small and medium sized businesses (SMB) and also to homes through its new u-mee subsidiary.

A necessary move

u-mee claims it can already reach more than half of residential and business properties with fibre optic cable and will be everywhere by mid-next year, while GibFibreSpeed says its 50% coverage will exceed 60% by year-end and 80% by 2016.

Sapphire has been doing well in gaming in recent years, a sector that is still growing, but diversification into the residential market was seen as “a necessary move”. As Sapphire Networks and u-mee chief executive, Lawrence Isola, explains: “Gaming revenues are not growing; we are selling more capacity for less and that is part of the reason for going into other areas – banks, small businesses and [homes]”.

The choice has been between offering residential services “or do we stick with local business and make hay while the sun shines without diversifying”. Sapphire decided a year and half ago to extend fibre to the home. “It wasn’t an easy decision to go into the residential market, because it is without doubt a risky investment given the size of our economy,” Isola observes.

Given a small market – an estimated 15,000 residential dwellings, plus the data hungry gaming companies and thriving business community – financial returns are uncertain.

Gibtel’s 2014 income stalled at £41.9m, the result of price competition in key sectors such as data storage centres, and the bandwidth supplied to eCommerce and eGaming. “Last year we announced price reductions of between 4-25% and this year we have taken further steps with price reductions”, Bristow explains.

With the intervention 18 months ago of Financial Service Minister, Albert Isola – Lawrence’s brother – the gaming companies have seen prices fall. “The price is continuously coming down – it’s probably 70% down on those from 2-3 years ago for the gaming community. Its been the combination of government intervention and competition with Gibtelecom”, the Sapphire chief executive suggests.

Now the retail cost of broadband has become the battleground. Bristow denies the reduction in Gibtel’s publicly advertised rates are primarily the result of competition. “It was something we had been meaning to do anyway, because we had always recognised that our prices were comparatively high, compared to some larger places”, he maintains.

Gibtel has twice cut its original £96pm price for 100mbs internet connection, to today’s £54pm! The telco sells 16mbs services for £28pm, little different to its 8mbs and 4mbs offerings.

Internet speed is as promised

Even so, Bristow is “most disappointed” with the take up of higher Internet speeds, being “nowhere near as great as we wanted; most people have stayed around the lower bandwidths in the 4-8mb offerings we always had when we ran them over ADSL”.

One reason, “is the fact that what we offer is what you get”, suggests Bristow. In another place, a 50mbs [download contract] may rarely run beyond 8mps “whereas when we offer 8mbs, broadly speaking you are getting it.” However, actual speed can be reduced: if copper wire is being used to households, or the number of devices being used at the same time, it can slow down individual units.

Gibtel’s Internet revenue accounting for 13% of the total, saw 7% growth – “more customers joining every month still”, Bristow notes, adding “whether we get hit in this area by competitors has yet to be seen – how much they will eat of our cake”.

Attractive add-on services are growing. u-mee offers free voice calls over the Internet (VOIP) as part of, or in addition to, users’ Gibtel landline number. Normal fixed line ‘phone use has declined for years throughout the world – however, at £7.2m it still accounts for 17% of Gibtel revenue after falling 5% in 2014. “One reason is that people are using more data to communicate [on computers and mobile], and second, there are disruptive technologies where people are able to use voice services and not having to pay for it [Skype, etc]”, he explained.

TV is an attractive, potentially profitable, but contentious area. UK terrestrial channels – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, etc – plus Sky, all refuse to transmit outside of the UK under EU agreements, yet with availability of fast internet connections IPTV makes viewing possible throughout the world.

A J Sheriff Electrical, which as Gibsat has been providing television services through a UK supplier to around 85% of The Rock using cable for 27 years, began its GibFibreSpeed to home internet & TV service 6 months ago. “We tried to get contracts with the channels, but they said ‘Gib is not part of the UK, nor part of Spain, it’s nowhere’ – the revenue is too little for them to bother about”, explains Andrew Sheriff. The company’s Internet offering ranges from 10mps for £10pm to 200mps costing £65.

Most TV ‘provided legally’

Isola says u-mee is now offering HD quality access to more than 120 TV channels, including from all UK broadcasters, with catch-up, rewind and recording as part of its fast broadband account.

“We are bringing most of the TV channels down from the UK by fibre optic cable… we are not capturing channels over the internet,” he declares and insists that “most of our channels are provided legally”, with efforts being made to legally tie up similarly other “relevant channels”. The u-mee offer for 50mbs Internet connection, VOIP and TV, is £39pm.

His u-mee diversification “will either have been a big success or a flop”, but he hopes the new residential and SMB market offering will in future account for “30-35% maybe of profitability – but I could be wrong here”.

Gibtel has flirted with TV-down-the-line for years. Yet Bristow maintains: “Gibtelecom, as the leading telecommunications provider on The Rock, has to do things properly and sensibly. Yes, perhaps where others operate in ‘grey’ areas, we choose not to – but we are looking at the matter again to see if there is a way we can bring certain TV and DVD services. I suppose we are encouraged to do so by the competition.”

The Gibraltar government bought the 50% stake it didn’t own in Gibtel from Telekom Slovenije in January for £47.7m, a move prompted by privatisation of the eastern European telecoms giant. Dr Joseph Garcia, deputy Chief Minister, said: “There have been several expressions of interest, [but] the Government is not in a hurry to find a suitable partner.”

In the meantime, Bristow emphasises: “Gibtelecom, whether partially or fully State-owned, has to operate within what is a very clear umbrella of the law and, therefore, we are not in a position where we can afford to take risks in a way that more margin players perhaps can.” He thought it too early to say how successful his competitors might be.

However, it’s a different story with mobile, where the demand for data on the move – even live or catch-up TV shows – is growing exponentially. Mobile, where Gibtelecom dominates, “is our really big potential growth engine”, and “competitors haven’t seemed to fair as well”, Bristow reported. Mobile produces £12.3m for Gibtel -up by 2% in 2014 after price reductions – and at 29% it is the largest revenue sector.

A license to provide 4G services to 95% of Gibraltar’s population by the end of the year was enhanced for Gibtel by a £3.5m deal with Ericsson to provide 4G+ services providing 150mps downloads for mobile users. Fifth generation mobile facilities are on the horizon.

While u-mee is not extending into mobile connections, it plans by the year-end to compete through a mobile application that links to Sapphire’s switch and with VOIP subscribers keep their existing ‘phone numbers they gain a new number that will ring in the home and mobile at the same time anywhere in the world.

Smile, a small mobile ‘phone operator owned by Gibraltar-registered EaziTelecom, has been offering cheap pre-pay mobile ‘phone services for two years, and was reported to be up for sale last year, however, no company representative was available to comment.

Fierce price competition

For Gibtel, the big diversification has been its US$31m investment for a 4.1% stake in the Europe India Gateway (EIG) submarine telecommunications cable, selling unused capacity to telcos worldwide for the past two years. Around half of its wholesale capacity has been taken amidst “fierce price competition” from Gibtel’s international partners, “some with submarine departments much bigger than our entire company”.

The investment has a projected 15% return over the full 25 years expected EIG life and was 50% funded from Gibtel working capital, the balance via a bank loan. The company has 15 carrier partners, including a small amount into Europe for Telstra, the Australian telco, as well as 15 consortium members.

Now, Gibtel claims to be just about “the biggest, smallest global carrier around the world – in terms of reach” and Bristow notes: “No-one to my knowledge of our sort of size has moved into this global communications space.” He expects shortly to sign a deal with Asia “to carry a substantial amount of traffic on a back-to-back deal”.

Bristow has ambitions to join other submarine cable consortia (subject to Board and shareholder approval), and sees connecting further to Africa, perhaps via Morocco, as a natural long-term objective – “it’s not an overnight win” involving “quite serious money”.

The 2014 annual report for Gibtelecom shows net current assets of about £50m and “a very healthy balance sheet, so we can attract leverage”, Bristow points out.

A lot of people think worldwide telecommunications is via satellite, “but 96%+ of the world’s traffic is by submarine cable and the cost of investing in those cables and operating them is the same irrespective of the traffic that is on them”, he adds.

The post Tuning into TV leads to broadband wars appeared first on Gibraltar International Magazine.

For some time, the expanding remote gambling sector, in particular, has complained that charges for telco services are too high when compared with other territories in which they operate.

Minister for Gaming and Financial Services, Albert Isola, took delegates at the 4th KPMG eGaming Summit in April by surprise when he announced “a round table meeting” with telco suppliers – Gibtelecom (in which the State has a 50% stake) and Sapphire Technologies – and users to “find a better way forward”.

He said: “It needs to be said that telcos have reduced their prices by some 50% over the last 10 years and at the same time the quality of their service has improved dramatically, but I accept that there is a need for a more cost-effective environment in our community.”

More than 40% of Gibraltar’s economy is generated by the remote gambling and financial services sectors. It has long been recognised that Gibraltar telco prices are a problem for gaming companies and also the wider financial services sector that also needs substantial, fast internet connections.

Telco costs became a major talking point at the eGaming Summit held at the new Sunborn Yacht Hotel when Nick Nally, chief development officer for Continent 8 Technologies, presented an outline jurisdictional comparison and benchmarking report on Gibraltar’s offering that showed telco costs were between six and 50 times more expensive than in five other jurisdictions.

Over 90% of Continent 8’s customer base for bulk data storage in ten countries is in on-line gaming. Recognising that his report was controversial, Nally said: “We think Gibraltar is the best location in Europe for gaming companies, but from our
experience it may be bad news unless something is done to reduce bandwidth charges that also affect the financial services sector more widely.”

He made clear that in other respects Gibraltar faired better by comparison with Isle of Man, Alderney, Dublin and London and Malta. Nally emphasised that across the range of staple elements to be considered when choosing where to locate an internet-based business, Gibraltar “is getting there, but there’s more work to be done”.

Telco insiders say that bandwidth charges are only one aspect of costs, internet-based operators face and in other respects operational costs in Gibraltar are below those in other jurisdictions that have the benefit of economy of scale in telco supply.

The post Searching for “a more cost-effective” telco provision appeared first on Gibraltar International Magazine.